NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Two games into the season and the Ducks not only don’t have a point, they haven’t even held a lead.

Everything they do at this moment seems to come with great difficulty, and the Nashville Predators were only too happy to take advantage in a 4-1 victory Saturday night in the Predators’ season opener at Bridgestone Arena.

The Ducks (0-2) have been outscored, 8-1, in their two defeats as the offense has been unable to get going, and they allowed goalie Jonas Hiller to get peppered with a 49 shots after allowing 43 to Detroit on Friday.

“It’s tough to play from behind all the time but we’re at game two right now and we’re a learning team,” Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. “We’ve got to take things out of tonight and go forward with it.

“It’s a matter of learning from your mistakes and moving on.”

There were small signs of progress. The Ducks did score and forged a tie when Saku Koivu answered Marcel Goc’s second-period goal with a nice wrist shot past Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne off a feed from Teemu Selanne.

The good feelings lasted all of three minutes as Steve Sullivan one-timed a blast past Hiller on the power play. Patric Hornqvist finished off a three-goal period for the Predators when he battled in a flying puck that was thrown at the net by Shea Weber.

Between those scores, the Ducks had a golden opportunity to tie it as they held a two-man advantage for 45 seconds and still had another 1:15 on a power play but came up empty even though they moved the puck all around the offensive zone.

“I think we hit four crossbars tonight,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “It was like anything we were directing at the net was finding a way to either hit their goaltender and him make the stop or we rang it off the post or the crossbar a couple of times.

“It seems that was the difference. When we had our chances, we just didn’t bury them.”

Nashville’s Pekka Rinne made 29 saves before he suffered a lower-body injury in the third period when Ducks forward Troy Bodie crashed into him as he went toward the net. Anders Lindback came out and stopped seven shots.

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